The courage of Beccaria: the disruption of “On Crimes and Punishments” in the climate of the “Son-of-Fear’s Law” in Bellum Exulum

The Fear of trial was a tried and tested tool of the legal systems of the old regime: a fearful response to the fear that pervaded society. In this context, Beccaria found the courage to go against the common thought of its time denying the goodness of the death penalty as an element of criminal justice. The philosophers of the time such as Voltaire and Kant, and even jurists such as Facchinei, Vergani and Giudici from Milan or as the Neapolitan Gaetano Majo (1757-1817) were all in favor of the death penalty. Starting from Majo, I followed the Neapolitan path to illustrate how fear was considered a necessary element in a literal war on brigandage and how, from the sixteenth century onwards, "increasingly terrible" measures were taken against highwaymen, until was decided to adopt against them the modules of the trial ad modum belli. It was then born a centuries-long spiral of a Law that might be seen as a fear's son, which facing the increase of crimes made the punishments even more terrible, but thus increasing the very crime that was wanted to fight: in a vicious circle to which Beccaria found the courage in opposing.